Journal Entry 1-Web Development Perceptions
In tutorial one I have learned many things. I learned how to create a very simple site using XHTML and the basic foundation and structure using Hypertext Markup Language. XHTML basically specifies that the code that displays content on the Web pages must follow certain rules. I learned how to put a comment code, how to create a Headings with different point sizes, how to create a body text, how to make the text appear in bold or italic and how to create special characters. Later on I also learned how to insert an image, how to create an ordered and unordered list, how to use the Abbreviation element and how to break the sentence and start a new one. There is also a website called www.w3.org where I can get information about the markup language and I can validate my website that I’m creating and see if I used the correct syntax and followed every rule correctly. There also another language called the CSS, I don’t know much about it yet , but basically makes the website a lot nicer where you can design the website and put some colors in it.
In my opinion web designing is very important to learn because that is where the future is heading. I remember five years ago I used to do all my shopping in the mall, but in the last two years things changed a lot, now I do most of my shopping online for example I buy my books, games and most of my electronics thorough out these popular websites like eBay and Amazon. There is this site called the Face Book that is really popular where you get to meet new friends or keep in touch with friends that live in a different country. That is why web designing plays a big roll.
There is all kind of occupation available for web developers because every company in these days has their own websites. If you surf the internet there are endless websites. Web developers create websites for their customers.
With that knowledge I want to create a nice website that is available to everybody.
Journal Entry 2-HTML History
In tutorial two I learned to create a link, and how to create the id tag, and how to create link to other pages. I also learned how to link to an external website, using an image as a link how to create an image map. One of the most important aspects in creating a website is organizing the folders. I learned how to follow the pass of my folder if I wanted to create link to it and organization the main key in this process.
Html 1.0 was released in to the world. At that time not many people were involved in creating websites. The language was very limited. There was not much that you could do with it, except getting a simple text into the web.
Later on Html2.0 was released and was added with some new features. The HTML 2.0 was the standard for the web design until January 1997. More and more people started to get involved into HTML; people wanted to enhance the look of the websites and were looking for more abilities and tags.
That is where some problems started, a company called Netscape was a leader of the browser at that time. They introduce the new abilities that were called Netscape extension tags. That caused big problems when the other browsers started to duplicated the tags so they don’t fall behind, but they would get a different things on their web browser. That means if somebody would design a page on Netscape, the page would look bad in other browsers. That caused confusion and irritation between the markup pioneers. At the same time a HTML working group that was led by a guy named Dave Raggett introduced HTML 3.0. It included many new and improved features and it was very powerful that allowed web developers to design their pages with many options, but it was way too slow they added new thing but left out the rest. HTML 3.0 was abandoned. Thankfully people weren’t discouraged; they knew that there are ways to improve HTML.
The browser specific tags kept coming and it was obvious that it had to be standardized. The W3C which stands for World Wide Web Consortium standardized the language in 1994 so it keeps evolving in the right way. The first work was code named WILBUR and later became known as HTML 3.2, where most of the tags were introduced be Netscape and some of it by Microsoft and then soon became official standard in January 1997 and today basically all browses support it fully.
Then HTML 4.0 came along which was a larger evaluation of the HTML standards. They made it better and support For HTML’s new supporting presentational language, cascading style sheets. Close at the beginning of the 21st century the W3C issued their specification of XHTML1.0 as a recommendation. Since January 26, 2000 it stands as the joint standard with HTML4.01.XHTML .It is a new branch of HTML, so that the code must be properly written, it is simpler and avoids confusion with fewer problems and obstacles there weren’t many new or deprecated tags and attributes in XHTML. There is also XHTML5 which is currently under development. For more information about HTML Click Here
Journal Entry 3-CSS History
Html was originally designed a simple way of presenting information. Designing of the page was far less important than the content back in the days. Now that the web browser became very popular, the presentation of the content became just as critical as the information in the web browser and it is a really critical part to the websites success. CSS is basically the key presentation technology that is used to design websites. The CSS is very easy and convenient to use. In late 1996 the CSS became a reality, you don’t have to go to each file and code it, and instead you put all the code on a single style sheet. The style sheet act as a partner your HTML code, by taking care of all the layout, fonts, colors and overall look of your site. If you want to modify the HTML pages all you have to do is go back to the external style sheet and change the overall look. These way things are way easier and less confusing. It also eliminates the need for browser-specific hacks and tags, which means your site has a better chance of working across all major browsers. There are a lot more benefits using CSS like pages download faster by as 50%. The web designer s has to type less code and the pages are shorter and neater. The look of the site is kept consistent in all pages that work of the same style sheet. Updating the design and general maintenance are made much easier and ending multiple HTML pages happens far less. There also a dozen of other powerful options and possibilities through style sheet that is not possible in normal HTML. Stuff like background, spacing and borders. For more information Click Here
HTML is the structural part of the webpage and where you put the information like text in it, while CSS consumes and modifies the presentation part of a web page. The current version of CSS is 2.1 and they are working on it to make it better that all browsers support all its features, they going to make it simple and introduce powerful features and improve it overall. I think it the CSS and HTML work perfect together and it only gets better and better, I really like working with the CSS.
Journal Entry 4-Web Design
It was definitely worth reading the article. A lot of useful information about web design. The thing that I found most interesting is that how with some simple principles like repetition, proximity, unity, contrast, asymmetrical balance and grid theory you can design a very nice and good looking website that draws the reader’s attention. Designing a webpage can be very challenging. It is harder than I assumed, there is more into it than just putting a color, a background image, fonts and etc. Web developers also need to have strong communications skills so he can discuss his work with his clients.
Journal Entry 5-Out of the box
This was a very interesting article and author discusses how important grids and wireframes are. And before developing a website, it is a very good idea that you sketch it on a piece a paper, by planning the looks of the website, the width and where everything should go and that makes everything easier. It is all about organization and planning. First you have to know the rules and how grids work before you can break them. Once you understand the foundations then it is easier to break out the box of the CSS layouts. Create stunning websites that are not boring anymore. It was worth reading the article because the author goes step by step on how to create a nice looking website; he even provides the tools so you can follow along.
Journal Entry 6-Tables vs. CSS
This article basically talks about how back in the old days they used tables without CSS. He explained the process of making a website with the tools that they had available back in the days and it was much, much more challenging you had to be very specific and specify everything down to the detail. It took a lot of time to figure something out when he bumped in to some challenges. The clear winner is obviously CSS. I was a good article worth reading it, the interesting part when he created a website just using table. We progressed so much that makes me think what is going to be next.
Journal Entry 7-Specificity
This article talks about specificity which means that if two selectors come in conflict with each other the declaration with the most specific selector will win. For example the style attribute has the highest specificity, next comes the id selector, then the class selector and last the numbers of the elements type selectors. I think it is very important to understand specificity, because it saves a lot of time, headaches and confusion.